naan disclosure:

I have a confession to make. I’ve never actually eaten at an Indian restaurant. It’s one of David’s final frontiers, and he’s wearing me down gradually.

David went on a field trip to Chicago for work a few weeks ago, and I decided I wanted to make something new and different.

I was going to make Indian.

The difficulties were clear—I didn’t have all day to cook, so I’d have to prep some in advance, get up super early in the morning and use the slow cooker. And then there’s the teeny tiny detail that I had no idea what I was cooking was supposed to taste like.

“Even if it’s not authentic, I’m sure it will at least be edible.” I reasoned. “If not, Papa Johns delivers until 9:45.”

After a few hours of searching, I created the menu for the evening. Literally.

Welcome to "Nomvana"

I broke out the calligraphy set and attempted to write in sanskrit. I'm pretty sure that all I managed to write was gibberish consonants run together and forgot the vowels, but it's the thought that counts.

I found a nice recipe for lamb slow cooker curry with Serrano peppers for the main, paired with raita--a cucumber yogurt sauce to scale down the heat from the Serrano. For rice, I cooked basmati with spinach and a generous amount of cumin. Dessert was the result of my recent pudding shot experiments. And because if you are going to do something, you might as well go all out, I made naan.

I shopped for all my ingredients the day before, which included staring at the fresh ginger for an embarrassingly long time, trying to figure out how much I'd need. I had debated the night before about making naan and decided to go for it. I had never tried to make naan. After I tweeted a picture, apparently I'm not alone.

this is all you need!

I don't understand why, now that I've made it. It's kind of like making pancakes. You don't need a brick oven, or a crazy rigged terra cotta flower pot (I'm looking at you, Alton Brown), or anything expensive or weird like that.

I knew nothing about Indian cooking, and I made very passable naan. You can too! I found this recipe on Chow and followed it closely, because naan recipes are all over the place if you just search the internet. This one seems pretty standard. I've made it twice now, and the results are consistent.

makes me want some hummus real bad

I would definitely classify this as a great success. David said the flavors were great, and the raita was the best he'd had. I liked the spinach+cumin+basmati dish I invented. The curry was delicious and had just the right amount of heat. And even though I've never eaten at an Indian restaurant, I can assure you, our apartment certainly smelled like one for the next couple days.

bacon wrapped pork loin:

9 out of 10 times if I have some time off work, whether a free day or a few hours, I end up spending my time on cooking blogs and tastespotting, browsing recipes and adding them to my bookmarks. Somewhere around the 2 hour mark, I will have decided upon what I will be making and I will head out to the store with my list.

Which is what happened on Friday. David was working from home that afternoon, and after getting his input on the recipe, I retrieved the ingredients. David said he liked the simplicity of the dish. After we made it, we can say that this dish is deceptively simple. The ingredients are straightforward and work well together, but cooking the dish to bring out the most desired qualities of the ingredients is a little challenging.

You want the potatoes fully cooked and the bacon crispy--but the pork loin not overcooked and the tomatoes to retain a little shape.

We tied the lemon thyme in with the bacon and pork for some extra flavor. We recommend cooking the potatoes first for at least 30 minutes before putting in the tomatoes and pork to ensure they are fully cooked. We also added a little white truffle infused olive oil to the dish to make the flavor a little more unique.

Next time we try and make this, we may partially cook the bacon in the skillet, then wrap it, to make it a little more crisp.

You don't want to layer this dish, so it does take up a lot of space. We ended up using three dishes to roast it all. We had plenty of tasty leftovers.

Tweaking classic comforts:

I'm all about tweaking recipes. I'll be in the kitchen, cooking away, and sneakily reach for a spice or ingredient from the pantry. "Woah. Woah!" David says, inevitably catching what I'm doing. "That's not in the recipe."

"And...?" I reply, grabbing the spice jar and sprinkling a little in the pot or pan.

I can honestly say that most of the time it works. And you never fail unless you don't learn something, right?*

Macaroni and cheese with tomato soup is one of my favorite classic comfort foods. While creamy macaroni and cheese has its place, I am partial to the crunchy edges that baked macaroni and cheese produces.

I also tweaked this recipe a little to add a fun--but inexpensive--ingredient. Fake lobster meat, which we refer to as "flobster". Altogether, this meal costs under $15 to make, and makes six jumbo mac n cheese cups. I also cheated a little and used box macaroni and cheese, mostly because I didn't want to fuss with real bechamel sauce. I put in some extra cheese and a palm full of flour to help it stick together better.

coat the bottom of the greased muffin tin with bread flakes, and sprinkle a little on top of each macamuffin

always, always add extra cheese

Bake at 375 for approximately 25 minutes, until golden.

David makes a great cream of tomato soup. We only had one instance of the acidity in the tomatoes causing curdling, then we discovered the magic ingredient. Baking soda. Add a little bit, and your cream of tomato soup will be safe.

When removing the macamuffins from the muffin tin, it is best to let them cool for at least 15 minutes. If you want them hot, they will be difficult to remove and lose their shape. But they will still taste great.

*Note: I have learned it is very important to follow the directions on semi instant tapioca pearls

A Wedding Cake CAN be an Ice Cream Cake:

"No, we don't make wedding cakes." David and I were standing in front of the counter at Graeters, mid December 2007.

"Okaaaaay." David said slowly. "Do you make ice cream cakes?"

"Yes."

"Could I potentially take that cake to a wedding?"

"I guess so."

"Then yes, you do make wedding cakes. We'd like black raspberry chip."

photocredit to Studio 3Z

It was day 20 of our 28 day wedding and honeymoon planning gauntlet, and we were wrapping up the final details. Most of the decisions, David had left up to me, but he was particularly adamant that he wanted an ice cream cake. After perusing the local options, we went with Graeter's.

Despite disagreements with the counter clerk about what exactly did and didn’t constitute a wedding cake, we placed our order for pickup on the morning of the ceremony. Initially, the Celestial said that they would not garnish outside cakes, and would simply just cut them, but the kitchen staff that evening kindly plated and garnished the slices beautifully. As of today, only this grainy, first gen iphone picture remains, but we can assure you, it was delicious.

What you don't know it that he's asking me "OK, we're married, is it time for cake yet?"

So, in short, Graeter's has a special place in our lives. When we were offered the chance to try their newest flavor, white raspberry chip, we certainly were not going to turn it down. The taste is very similar to black raspberry chip, but it is a little lighter. We thought the blackberry is more muted and not as tart, which goes well with the milder flavor of the white chocolate.

We served ours on top of a brownie with whipped cream. This new flavor will be available to sample (for free) and to purchase at this weekend's taste of Cincinnati, and is also available in all Graeter's locations.

***Disclosure: We did not pay for our pint. We were contacted by Graeter's and asked if we would like to sample the new flavor. We accepted. What, like you wouldn’t?***

Quail Eggs, Bacon and Scallops:

“So…are you guys going to blog about this?”

At that question, I looked up from monitoring the toasting French baguette. David paused cooking nitrate free applewood smoked bacon and gently cracking quail eggs into the skillet.

We both looked at each other, then at 5chw4r7z. “eh, maybe.” we both shrugged. “Meh.”

Food blogging in restaurants is fairly easy if you factor out the situations where the light is off and makes pictures grainy or difficult to take. The food is cooked by someone else, then presented in front of you; you snap some pictures and go about your meal.

Blogging while cooking, on the other hand, is totally different. We’re always cooking and finding lots of fantastic, tasty things—chili, carnitas, chicken alfredo. Steaks and roasts and cultured cream biscuits. Why haven’t you heard about it? Lots of reasons.

Taking nice pictures while cooking is a delicate balance. Snapping away, keeping an eye on the food itself to make sure it’s not burning while you’ve got the camera glued to your face. Look out for the cat, which is always underfoot in the kitchen, don’t step on his tail. Don’t get food on the camera. And don’t drop the camera in a skillet of bacon fat. And you need both hands to handle the camera, which means putting the beer down. The devil is in the details.

But 5chw4r7z’s question made me pause for a second. We were not working with the usual proteins here. I had drug David into Findlay Market’s oriental market and walked out with a carton of quail eggs.

We added bacon, smoked gouda and toasted baguette to make cute little appetizers that tasted fantastic.

We still had some quail eggs left over the next day. Determined to not miss this opportunity, we decided to up the ante, and purchased sea scallops to substitute for the baguette. We resolved to cook them that evening. And blog the bejeezus out of it.

Consider yourself warned: If you're hungry now, it's about to get a lot worse.

Quail eggshells are tough, use a knife to help with cracking. Otherwise you will have a big mess, broken quail eggs and a sad face.

We made homemade herbed bread to go with our plate. With plenty of butter.